Mamma Mia! = Brilliant, ABBA = Boring
Mamma Mia! = Brilliant, ABBA = Boring
As many know from my first review of Mamma Mia! The Movie at the initial test screening, one of the things I did immediately get back in the car to head home and anxiously wanted to hear the songs again to just take in and appreciate the magic brought to the big screen by Benny Andersson and many of the original players within ABBA’s studio. And when I put on the original ABBA songs for my journey home, I was quite frankly highly disappointed by how flat and dead the songs sounded next to their updated versions in the movie.
I know I could have put on the original London cast recording of Mamma Mia! but let’s face it the criminal levels of torture upon any ears that album inflicts, there simply is no chance in hell that is going to happen. I especially want to single out Siobhan McCarthy and Lisa Stokke as London’s original Donna and Sophie for their vocal crimes against humanity that quite frankly if both were to be shot dead right now, it would considered a public service in preventing either of those shitty singers from ruining any future cast recordings of other shows. And since the powers that be decided that should be the only cast recording of Mamma Mia! the stage show in English, throw in a bullet or two for them as well. It truly was criminal NOT to have cast recordings of the Original Canadian, Australian, and Broadway casts all of whom had far better singers, and yet it’s those shrill bitches who get to sit on their asses and collect vocal performance royalties on the cast album they do nothing but ruin. Where is the justice in this world?
So considering my first screening of Mamma Mia! The Movie was in March and the was soundtrack was months away from being available to enjoy, it meant it had to be the original ABBA, and normally that’s a wonderful blessing, as vocally, no one can do an ABBA song quite like Anni-Frid & Agnetha. And considering I’ve really been a big ABBA slump for the last couple of years, the fact I actually wanted to put on some ABBA in itself was a miracle. Only the 1970’s recordings were simply no match to a 2008 surround sound motion picture extravaganza. The original ABBA songs sounded so sonically flat and dead, I just couldn’t make it the whole way through a song without skipping on to the next one. I so wanted to enjoy the excitement the songs gave me when I saw them on the big screen, and the best I could do was race back home and try to dump as much of my memory of the screening down into a review.
Well now its months later, the soundtrack is out, and the movie has been released in a majority of territories and has been quite a success. And now that I’ve seen the movie more times than I care to admit (keep in mind that by the time the movie opened I had already seen it at four advanced screenings and let’s face it I had a number of people who wanted to see the movie with me and ones I wanted to share it with…) And yet, still I have a hard time enjoying the original ABBA tracks next to the movie. Benny really outdid himself with the score for the movie giving the old ABBA classics new life. The music from the movie just sounds so much more vibrant, and some of the classic songs have been sped up a little bit giving them a new sense of urgency that it makes the originals sound as if they were designed to be the proper speed for aging grannies in wheelchairs to perform.
Going from song to song, this is my comparisons between the movie soundtrack version and the original ABBA one. Do keep in mind the versions on the soundtrack were presented in the pop versions of the song, not as they appear in the film, so if you’re expecting the dialogue that runs in the middle of songs, you’re going to be disappointed.
In “Honey, Honey” the movie version benefits from the dropping of the lyrics originally sung by Bjorn which seems to elevate it from a banal, near-duet to a solid song of praise about how one young lady’s man is her beaux. Although, having been used to the ABBA version for so long it’s hard not to mentally fill in the missing lyrics. It amazingly improves the song to get rid of Bjorn’s smurf-like voice.
“Money, Money, Money” is one of the few songs on the soundtrack where the updated music has nothing over the original, in fact, when you get into the parts of the song past the line about going to Las Vegas or Monaco, the near whistling of the high pitch instrumentation is more of an annoyance that takes you right out of the song and hampers the enjoyment of it. The song comes across as Benny got a little too excited about having more tracks available for him to add little flourishes that it’s the sonic equivalent of a busy street in rush hour making it near impossible to appreciate the beauty of any of the individual cars. The original ABBA version doesn’t suffer from being so busy and tiring to the ear, that you can appreciate the song like a fine wine.
When we get to “Mamma Mia” it comes across in the film version with a tiny bit of a quicker pace. The music brilliantly compliments Meryl Streep’s performance. Other than that it’s very close to the original ABBA version and the only real difference is the more theatrical performance of the lyrics.
“Dancing Queen” is where it becomes truly apparent of the difference in sound quality between 2008 and 1976. Not only is the movie version going to a quicker pace, it just feels a lot more sonically dynamic that when you play the movie version first then follow it up with the original. I get left feeling like all the fun got sucked out of the song. Perhaps it’s the fact that in the movie the song becomes an anthem that builds from few voices to a large chorus of singers with a steadily growing amount of energy. Also the movie version benefits from a proper ending to the song, whereas the original simply fades out. The original stays consistent throughout the song, but at a slower pace, that it doesn’t even feel like a dance song any more. And that’s only seems to be the case when you have it played in the order of the movie version and then the original.
With “Our Last Summer” now being a song exploring the three potential fathers sharing their history with her mother, it takes on a completely different feel and tone from the ABBA original. Musically the song is not all that different than the ABBA version, except the feeling of a greater presence of an electric guitar throughout the song to butch it up into a more masculine song that is still able to tug at the heartstrings. The softer feeling of the original ABBA version is definitely very feminine by contrast.
“Lay All Your Love On Me” also features a quicker pace in the movie version compared to the original ABBA version. Like “Money, Money, Money” it features a few embellishments from Benny that weren’t present or were done very differently in the original version that come across as more distracting than complimentary to the song but they fortunately aren’t in the song enough to completely take you out of the song. One of the nice things that the song accomplishes in the film is that it opens as a duet then becomes a guys song as the boys come to take Sky away for the bachelor party, but one of my favorite parts is where the chorus transitions from the guys to the girls to help ease into the transition of the show to the bachelorette party or hen party as they call it in the movie. Here the ABBA version is again more consistent, in that it lacks those transitions which just make the movie version a little different, but not necessarily better.
“Super Trouper” is a song that comes across with a bit of a faster pace than the very relaxed original ABBA version. Perhaps it’s due to the fact the song is a “performance” piece in the show, so the Donna and the Dynamos have to perform it and dance to it that it comes across with a little bit more vibrancy than the original ABBA version. Even though we’re not really supposed to mention the ABBA Live album (due to the fact little of it is truly live once the studio tampering got done with it), but even when ABBA did the song live, they did it with a bigger sense of speed and urgency than the studio version.
“Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” like “Dancing Queen” is one that stands out and makes the original sound boring by comparison. Probably the song that got the most of a bump in terms of speed and song pacing, going from the movie version to the ABBA original is to harsh to be enjoyed. The movie version has the pacing that feels like a horse race from the moment it starts until it ends and the original is like jogging.
“The Name Of The Game” which was actually excised from the movie, but still exists on the soundtrack, is one of the few that doesn’t feel like it sonically improves on the original. In a way it was probably good to excise the song from the movie because it gets sandwiched between “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” and “Voulez-Vous” which are fast paced songs, and this song kills the momentum. When it was specifically asked of me if this song was in the original screening as compared to later, I almost wasn’t sure, but I did write in my original review it was there, and after having seen the movie a few times I know I distinctly remember seeing the line Harry states about it not being his secret to have kept over the years which launches into the song. So it had to have been there. So for the benefit of the movie, it was best to excise the song. Again it offers nothing over the original.
The movie jumps from “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” to “Voulez-Vous” and this song also gets sped up to feel more modern. It also helps increase the dramatic tension in the show as this is the final song in the first act in the stage show. This song also gets a proper ending instead of a fade out, and the way it’s done (which is different from how it is in the film) is a little flourish that Benny gives it to make it better than a simple fade out. The ABBA original is no slouch in pacing but it just doesn’t have the same impact to me as the film version.
As close to a proper end of the first act that the movie gets, the screen fades to black and returns the next morning to find the drama return with Pierce Brosnan reaching out as Sam to Meryl Streep’s Donna through the use of “S.O.S.” and musically it feels like an updated version of the original with some slight modernizations. However, the song has a more relaxed feel than the original ABBA version, no doubt due to the need for the song to convey a sense of melancholy the original doesn’t have to deal with.
Other than the obvious change from the male perspective to the female, “Does Your Mother Know” is also given a boost of speed to make it a very energetic dance song. The larger size of the chorus gives it more of a presence than the original. When comparing the two versions side by side, the introductory beats in the original sound as dated as one would consider Pong in the world of video games to the latest tennis style games.
“Slipping Through My Fingers” in the movie version is kind of contradictory to the original, it’s presented in a way that feels more delicate than the original and yet it’s also able to come across as far more powerful than the original version through the use of electric guitars. Perhaps because the theatrical version is aiming for the heartstrings whereas the original is just a simple pop song, the original just lacks emotion. The movie version benefits from the softness of Meryl by herself but ramping up the power when she’s joined by Amanda Seyfried for a round of the chorus before tackling it with the electric guitar to raise the bar even further.
“The Winner Takes It All” in both the movie and theatrical version of “Mamma Mia!” is a showstopper in ever sense of the word, and so the ladies of the stage and Meryl Streep run the song through a plethora of emotions to make you glad you’re not the one having to stand there taking this emotional equivalent of a knife to the heart. Without the visual component of the movie, Meryl Streep’s version takes a few listens to get in sync with the raw emotion she’s tapping because really she’s emoting, not singing the song and its truly not fair to compare it against what is arguably one of the best songs ever done by ABBA lyrically and performance wise. Truly it feels like Agnetha and Meryl are coming from completely different directions in what’s driving their respective performances. The movie version does make me wonder if the original could have been improved if Agnetha was instructed to just let it all out and go for an emotional high note and the song ended with a definite end as opposed to stepping back to sing the backing vocals and the fade out.
About the most surprising thing about the movie version of “When All Is Said And Done” is that it has been completely turned around from being a song about celebrating the end of a relationship and moving on and becoming a song about coming together in a time of joy. That was a completely unexpected use of the song and the dramatic slowing down the song really helps make it feel almost like the campfire sing-a-long type of song you picture “Fernando” to be. And the original couldn’t be more opposite. It feels more like the last dance at a party following something like a graduation party where people part ways not knowing or even feeling bad about the possibility that the paths that separate right then and there may never cross again. This transformation is quite interesting and unique.
“Take A Chance On Me” is not necessarily better in the film, as it’s playfully done in a way to suggest a little desperation that’s not present in the original. And this is one of the few instances where the new movie version comes across as a little slower than the original version. It’s got way too many voices involved to feel that cohesive. And with the soundtrack version, which is different from the film version, it lacks the brilliant ending that’s found in the movie where the song comes down to the “take a chance, take a chance, chance” background to lead out of the song and fades out like the original ABBA version does.
The soundtrack unofficially closes out with “I Have A Dream” which in the movie and the stage play, bookends the show. The version used in the movie feels a lot like the original except the guitars have been changed to sound a lot more Greek, to fit the setting of the play. The version is truly no better or worse than the original, although I do love how the music virtually disappears for the final time Amanda Seyfried sings “I Have A Dream” to make it stand out all the more. It comes across as far more effective than the fade out used in the original.
What really closes out the soundtrack is “Thank You For The Music” as a “hidden” track tacked on to the end of “I Have A Dream” and here the song really does sound amazing as just a piano and a voice. Granted, I do find on repeated listens it bores me to tears because it follows some songs that are played out for their emotional worth that I feel pretty much spent by the time I get to this song. And I’m usually pretty disappointed with the ABBA original too because the best experience I’ve ever had with “Thank You For The Music” is during the end of “ABBA: The Movie” the version there sounds more vibrant than the official album version, and if I had to pair up the “Mamma Mia!” movie version against the “ABBA: The Movie” version, the “ABBA: The Movie” version would win hands down, as it comes across as the afterglow of a magical experience, and the “Mamma Mia!” version feels like the awkward silence when there’s nothing left to say and no graceful way to exit.
All in all, I love the “Mamma Mia!” Movie soundtrack album, and it was a pleasure to finally add it to my collection after so many months of wishing I had a copy of it to enjoy to remember the wonderful experience I had seeing the movie for the first time in March. One of the things I think that I would hope the success of the movie and soundtrack would result in is Benny getting the idea that if he were to pair up the “Mamma Mia!” music with the original ABBA vocals, he’s sitting on a goldmine for another way to milk the catalogue, and I for one would be the first in line to buy it willingly! So come on Bjorn and Benny, there’s more you can do to enhance the original ABBA songs as you’ve already proven with their recreations on the “Mamma Mia!” soundtrack.